Speaking to a gathering of students and professors in the Energy Innovation Center, Kendra S. Quick, Land Manager for the coal division of Peabody Energy in the Powder River Basin, briefly outlined the process through which a large energy company acquires the right to extract the resources it needs from federal and private lands.
“Most of the coal in the Powder River Basin is federally owned mineral,” said Quick. “The first thing we have to do is put a presentation together, and present it to the regional coal team.”
This team consists of several Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administrative officials from surrounding states and officials from state governments as well, Quick indicated.
The entire lease approval and acquisition process is kept as transparent as possible. Notices of events are provided to the public for comments and criticisms. The entire process can take up to seven years, partially due to the fact that any and all questions raised by the public must be addressed by a local BLM office before mining can commence, Quick said.
“I’m all for the public notice periods,” said Quick. “I think that the public has the right to put in their opinion, we all have the right, this is America.”
This sensitivity to public opinion does not only appear in the acquisition stage of the mining process, but also in the company’s dealings with private landowners.
Unlike oil and natural gas extraction regulations where a company can drill on private property if a resident does not own the mineral rights, a coal mining company has to garner the explicit contractual consent of any resident that owns the surface rights of the land.
“An oil and gas operator can go in and drill a well and they might disturb only a few acres, so that’s all that landowner is losing,” said Quick. “When you look at what we do, we really impact them. So we really have to have a good working relationship, and a good fair deal with them for that.”
Not only did Quick stress the closeness which the coal industry works with members of the public, she also stressed the importance of coal as an energy resource in this country. This viewpoint has become increasingly politically charged with the advent of the Obama Administration’s recent public statements made in favor of a pivot towards natural gas, and a turn away from coal.
“It’s going to affect the American public,” said Quick. “They’re no longer going to have a cheap energy source of coal and they’re going to see their energy costs increase. We would see energy poverty in the United States.”
While the federal government might consider turning away from coal, Wyoming is in the midst of investing more so in the resource. With Matt Mead’s recent push for a $15 million carbon capture research facility, the state is poised to tie itself closely to the coal industry.
“We have all this resource, and it’s a shame to waste it and not use to generate electricity for this country,” Quick said, stating her approval of the governor’s proposed facility.
